Monday, June 13, 2011

Etc.

As one of the deadliest battles of the war in Afghanistan raged, Afghan soldiers ran, hid, and even stole personal items from the American soldiers fighting and dying at a remote outpost.

When the Oct. 3, 2009, firefight at Combat Outpost Keating ended near the Pakistan border, eight US soldiers were dead and 22 more were wounded. A military investigation released yesterday said the 53 Americans at Keating fought heroically, repelling hundreds of insurgents, but the investigation also faulted US commanders for leaving their troops in a vulnerable position. And the Afghan soldiers got a withering appraisal from soldiers interviewed by investigators.

The United States has spent billions since 2001 training and equipping the Afghan army and police. Afghan security forces capable of defeating insurgents and terrorists are an essential ingredient in the Obama administration’s plans to begin withdrawing American forces, and senior US national security officials speak optimistically of progress.

But first-hand accounts from the battle at Keating, detailed in witness statements included in the investigation, provide a different, highly critical view.

One of the harshest came from two Latvian soldiers stationed at Keating and responsible for mentoring the three dozen Afghan troops at the base in Nuristan Province. The Latvians told the US investigators that the Afghan soldiers lacked “discipline, motivation, and initiative.’’

Close to 300 insurgents attacked Keating at dawn with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars, and guns. As the chaos of combat enveloped the base, the Latvians said they saw three Afghan soldiers at the aid station waiting to be treated for minor scratches and cuts. An Afghan platoon sergeant was in a corner of the station, curled up in a fetal position, they told investigators.

Later, they opened a door to one of the buildings and found several other soldiers and Afghan security guards sitting on beds “anxiously waiting.’’ None of them had weapons at the ready or made an aggressive move when the door swung open.

In other buildings, they found Afghan soldiers “in ones and twos, hiding under blankets in the fetal position.’’

Protein drinks, digital cameras, and other personal items that belonged to the Americans were found in the overstuffed duffel bags of Afghan soldiers as they were being moved to another base on an Army helicopter after the battle had ended, investigators were told.

“A majority of the duffels contained materials that had been pillaged from the US soldiers’ barracks rooms,’’ said a memo summarizing comments.

Unbelievable. You know it's bad when even the Latvians find fault (not to disparage Latvia or its people but it isn't a major power though it is a player).

Americans and Canadians are risking their lives for people who have more energy to throw acid in schoolgirls' faces than in defending their country. How low can this get?

An estimated 9,000 Hmong, mainly Catholics and Protestant Christians, gathered in the Muong Nhe district in North Vietnam's Dien Bien province on May 1 to honor the beatification of Pope John Paul II. According to Catholic sources, the late "Polish Pope," who had opposed both fascist Nazis forces and communist totalitarianism, is a source of inspiration to many Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, and Hmong Christian believers due to the courageous moral conduct of his life and his powerful call to "be not afraid" in challenging social injustice and Stalinist-type regimes around the world.

The religious services honoring the pope evolved into peaceful protests by Hmong seeking religious freedom and the cessation of human rights abuses, institutional corruption, social injustice, and land-grabbing. Dien Bien is one of Vietnam's poorest provinces, located in the remote and mountainous area bordering Laos and China. The province's estimated 170,000 Hmong represent 35 percent of its population (1.24% of VN's total), with the Hmong earning less than a tenth of the average annual income of the Vietnamese.

As was the case during similar protests by Montagnard Christians in 2001 in the Central Highlands, and in true fascist form, communist officials overreacted by deploying thousands of troops, special police, and MI-24 "Hind" helicopter gunships. All outside communication was shut down, the electricity was cut off, the province was cordoned off to prevent anyone from entering or leaving, and all news media and foreigners were banned from the area. Some Hmong demonstrators were able to escape into the nearby mountains, where they were hunted by heliborne "Dac Cong" Special Forces units. Some of the fleeing Hmong are reported to have been summarily executed when caught. At least two Hmong mountain villages and several enclaves suspected of harboring fleeing protesters were attacked by the gunships armed with rockets, cannons, and Gatling guns. It is not known how many were killed or wounded.

One message sent by someone in Juneau, Alaska on Sept 17, 2008 said the governor should be "shot from one of the planes that shoot the very wolves that you ordered."

Five days earlier an email landed in her in-box saying she "must be killed."

It said: "She doesn't belong to the NRA to support the right of each citizen to have weapons in an aim of self-defence, but just to support the right of every southern white citizen to shoot all non-white people legally! Sarah Palin MUST BE KILLED!"

Oh, of course not! Conservative, self-made women deserve to be hounded, not protected. What was I thinking?